No smoke without fire: Nilo Cruz’ play about Cuban-American cigar makers lit up Broadway.Oskar Landi

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When Nilo Cruz and his family arrived in Miami from Cuba in 1970, they were penniless exiles of the Castro regime. Cruz, then age 10, knew no English.

Fast-forward to 2003 when Cruz learned that he had won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his then-almost-unknown play, “Anna in the Tropics,” a story about Cuban-American cigar makers during the Depression. Cruz became the first Hispanic to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

“It was a moment of disbelief,” says Cruz, 51, who splits his time between New York and Miami. “The play had never been on Broadway. I didn’t think I had a chance.”

His younger life, it seems, was one of chance opportunity. When Cruz was 2, his father became disenchanted with the Castro regime and decided to escape to the United States; however, he was captured and imprisoned for two years. Then, the government refused to grant the family a permit to the US for six years. “We were,” Cruz says, “a marked family.”

When Cruz arrived in Miami, the family settled in Little Havana. Within a year, Cruz learned to speak English fluently. Says Cruz: “I pushed myself.”

After graduating high school, Cruz briefly attended college before dropping out. Five years later, his life took a dramatic turn. “One day I had an epiphany to go to the theater,” says Cruz. “I found my calling and decided I wanted to study theater.”

In 1988, Cruz moved to New York and studied playwriting with fellow Cuban María Irene Fornés.

“I am very grateful to the city,” says Cruz. “It’s where I found my voice as a writer.”

He completed an MFA at Brown and returned to the theatrical world of New York.

“I think he’s an amazing playwright,” says Daryl Roth, a producer of the Broadway production of “Anna in the Tropics.” “His writing is very truthful and honest, but it also moves in the world of magic and imagination.”

Most of Cruz’s works give a voice to Hispanic characters. “I feel,” he says, “that it’s important for them to be represented in North American theater.”

Being Hispanic is central to Cruz’s soul. “I express myself in a very different way in terms of emotions, in the way I see life. And I’ve maintained certain rituals, customs that are very Hispanic. We’re not afraid to show affection and tenderness. We’re not afraid to show our emotions.”

In addition to “Anna in the Tropics,” Cruz has written over a dozen other plays, including a new production that will be staged in New York for the first time this fall: “A Bicycle Country,” which opens September 27 at The Theater for a New City. The soprano Renée Fleming has commissioned Cruz to write an opera, as has an equally famous male opera singer, whose name can’t yet be disclosed.

All of which has left Cruz’s mother and late father “very, very proud” of their son. “They never thought I could go as far as I have,” he says. “They are ecstatic with my success and also because I am writing about their stories.”